Christmas Day part 2

We headed to Lenyr's house Christmas afternoon and enjoyed a nice lunch with Marco's side of the family.  We also celebrated Beltina's birthday. 

 
We did a white elephant type gift exchange  that everyone except Nolan participated in.  He was happy with his role as present distributor.

I think everyone was pretty happy with what they ended up with, although there were 3 clock radio variations in the mix!  I got one of them.

Ron got one too.

Lenyr got the massaging shower head I bought, and Marco got an insulated Starbucks travel cup.  Victoria got the hot air popcorn popper that Karly had contributed.  Karly was thrilled with her watch, nail polish, and cute slippers.

Christmas Day

Karly got up about 7:30, bouncing around and super-excited.  She and Marco and I came downstairs and got the monkey bread in the oven and made the monkey munch (Karly's requested food).  She found Zippie the Elf, who was able to stay one extra day since Karly was very distraught about his pending departure.

Thankfully, when he left the next day, all the Christmas loot seemed to be sufficient to distract her from her sadness about missing him.  I let her open a couple of stocking presents.  Luckily one that she opened was a little magic kit and that amused her for a bit.  We finally let her wake the soundly-sleeping-Nolan up at 9 a.m.

They went through the stockings and got lots of fun things like, gloves, socks, toothbrush, toothpaste and band-aids.

Nolan's tape supply

Smencils!

After stockings we took a break to eat our breakfast - bacon, eggs, and monkey bread, and then it was back to the presents.

Marco got a tool organizer/tote thingy.

Karly picked out a shirt for me.

The kids were very sweet and excited to give each other the presents they had picked out.  They both did a great job choosing something that the other really loved.  

Karly got a nerf "zombie gun" for Nolan. 

Nolan picked this soft kitty travel pillow for Karly.  

 

Nolan is really into the gift wrapping and giving. There were quite a few gifts under the tree of random things, pack of gum, book, picture he made, that he had wrapped up for people, mostly for Karly.

Here is Karly opening a roll of wrapping paper that he wrapped.

The mountain of stuff was kind of getting out of hand, but luckily we were almost done.

For the very last present, Santa came through with the one thing Karly had on her wish list - Wii and Super Mario game.

She was a little excited.

Christmas Eve

We had a pretty low-key Christmas Eve.  I headed to the grocery store first thing in the morning (along with everyone else and their brother) to ensure we had some yummy holiday goodies on hand.  Despite having no other plans, we still somehow managed to have a hectic time getting out of the house for the 2 pm church service.  3 of the 4 of us were dressed nicely (not worth arguing with Nolan), but of course we didn't get a single picture of that.

After church, we had carry-out Thai/Chinese food for dinner, with sparkling Apple Cider to drink (big hit with Karly, not so much with Nolan).  Actually, he wouldn't eat the food either (c'mon, white rice and chicken?  his usual favs?), so I ended up making a bowl of mac and cheese for him (*roll eyes*).

Christmas PJs

Love that grin!

He will proudly tell you that his pjs say, "I've been good all year.  Just ask my mom."

The kids opened their traditional Christmas Eve present of pjs and we finally got around to making cookies with the dough that had been sitting in the refrigerator for over a week.  The kids went to bed reasonably well (for them), and I was very proud and relieved that nearly all the presents were actually wrapped already, as compared with a previous year when I was desperately trying to buy tape at 9 pm on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Shopping With Karly

Karly wanted to buy Christmas presents for Nolan and Megan, so she asked me to take her shopping.  First stop: Toys R Us.  She didn't waste any time telling me about all the presents she wanted, like this pogo stick.

She found a zombie-killing nerf gun for Nolan and we both thought it was the perfect gift for him since he likes to play zombie video games and is always running around pretending to kill zombies with his imaginary weapons.

Karly looking at random toys while we waited in line.

We were there for a while.

The never ending line.

Then we headed to Springfield Mall to look for Megan's present. The nice thing about Springfield Mall is that nobody shops there anymore.

Shooting from the hip. I almost got Karly in the picture.

Bench by Macy's. My attempt at artsy photography.

Karly is such a great model.  I never have to ask her twice to pose for a picture.

We found this great glass wall on the way out, so we had to stop and take some more pictures.

It was a fun morning.

Piano Recital

Karly has been taking piano lessons and on December 4th she had her first recital.  Each of her teacher's students played a different song. Karly didn't seem nervous and had a great performance -- even though there were thousands of people in the audience. She played Jingle Bells.

The Venue

We got there early so she and Nolan got to play a little.

One last practice before the big show.

The actual performance

Her teacher Rachel

Her friend Lizzie from school came to support Karly.

Posing for all the newspaper photographers.